“Agreed.”
“Sit back down, Maleah. Let’s get all comfy cozy.”
She sat, crossed her ankles, and folded her hands together in her lap. She didn’t try to hide her apprehension. Allowing her emotions free rein was the only way she could give Browning what he wanted. A large part of the pleasure he was seeking would come from knowing how difficult it would be for her to relinquish control over her emotions.
“Your stepfather, did he beat your mother?”
“Yes, I believe he did. I know he slapped her quite often whenever she did anything that displeased him.”
“And what do you think it was like for her during sex? Did you ever think about how he must have brutalized her? I’ll bet you could hear her crying, couldn’t you?”
Memories that she had kept buried deep inside her subconscious broke through the barrier of her iron control, memories that she didn’t want to recall.
“Yes, I heard her crying, but . . . I was too young and innocent at the time to know why.”
“But when you were older and you knew all about sex, about what goes on between a man and a woman —”
“I tried not to think about it.”
“No, of course not. You wouldn’t let yourself, would you? No man would ever hurt you. No man would ever dominate you, control you, beat you into submission.” He paused, as if waiting to see if one of his accusatory arrows had hit their mark. “And yet here you are giving me something you’ve never given another man.”
She clenched her teeth, hating Browning, hating herself.
Maleah brought the memory up from the dark corners of her soul. Her naked mother running down the hall, her face bloody and bruised. Nolan catching her, shoving her down on the floor and—
Thirteen-year-old Maleah had heard her mother’s screams, gotten out of bed and opened her door. Jack had been gone for only a few weeks. He had joined the army and left her all alone in the family’s house of horrors.
Maleah hadn’t realized she was crying, not until she heard Browning’s deep intake of breath, so satisfied, so pleased with himself.
She looked at him through her tears.
“Did you ever try to help your mother?” Browning asked.
“No.”
After all these years, she still felt guilty that she hadn’t done more to save her mother. But even as a teenager, she had been terrified of Nolan Reeves, of the threats he had made to kill both her and her mother if she ever interfered or told anyone “lies” about him.
“Your stepfather beat your mother, raped her repeatedly, abused her terribly and you did nothing,” Browning said.
Tears threatened to choke Maleah. Emotions long bottled up inside her rose to the surface. It took all of her energy to hold them at bay.
She had paid his price. She had given him her tears. Now, by God, he’d give her whatever information he had or . . . Or what?
“Tell me,” she managed to say, her voice a mere whisper.
“Thank you, Maleah.” Jerome Browning leaned back his head, closed his eyes, and released a heavy, orgasmic sigh. “It’s been a long time since a woman has given me so much pleasure.”
Every instinct she possessed urged her to attack, to rip out the monster’s heart and throw it to a pack of wild dogs. At that very moment, she hated Jerome Browning almost as much as she had hated Nolan Reeves.
“Tell me, damn it,” Maleah demanded.
“Of course, my dear. I am an honorable man who always pays his debts. You give to me and I give to you.”
“Then give, you sick son of a bitch.”
“He referred to himself as a death technician and an international contractor. I like those terms, don’t you?” Browning’s gaze sparkled with amusement, but he didn’t smile when he said, “As a professional courtesy, one skilled death technician to another, the man you refer to as the Copycat Carver did not deny it when I asked him if he was a professional hit man. As far as I’m concerned, his silence was a confirmation. He knew that as well as I did.”
Maleah swiped the tears trickling down her cheeks.
“Save just a taste for me,” Browning reminded her and then ran his tongue across his upper lip.
Ignoring his comment and gesture, she asked, “Do you know anything at all about who hired him and why?”
“Perhaps.”
“I’ve paid you in full, so don’t try to play me. Not now. It’s too late in the game,” she reminded him. “You still owe me.”
Browning hesitated for a moment before replying. “Why would you think he would have shared that kind of information with anyone, even with me? He is no sloppy amateur. He kills people for a living. And he’s quite good at it, isn’t he?”
Instinct told her that Browning did know something else and she was determined he share that info with her, no matter how insignificant. “I want the rest of the information I paid for.”
“Yes, of course. A deal is a deal.” He couldn’t take his gaze off the tears clinging to her lashes and seeping from the corners of her eyes. “Sometimes, during his visits, we talked philosophy, past experiences, things like that. We exchanged confidences the way people in the same profession do. It’s not often that you meet someone who is your equal, perhaps even slightly superior. Of course, he didn’t mention names, but . . .”
Maleah waited, allowing him this one final moment of victory.
He savored the moment, let it drag on and on, and she knew what he wanted.
“But what, Jerome?” She jumped up, leaned over him and glanced at the guard out of the corner of her eye, trying to nonverbally ask him to stay put. “You can’t tell me anything, can you? You’ve been stringing me along all this time. You really are a son of a bitch, aren’t you? And I hate you.” She balled her hands into fists and held them in his face, letting him see how much she wanted to pummel him. “I hate you, hate you, hate you, hate you!” she shouted.
“My copycat is a very proud man and if he has one flaw, it’s that he’s boastful.” The words flowed out of Browning like water from a dam that had just burst wide open. “He liked to brag about how rich and powerful those who have employed him are. As I said before, he couldn’t mention names, but he did tell me that he has worked for political leaders and crime bosses throughout the U.S., Europe, and around the world. That makes him an international contractor. His current employer is a billionaire who owns a private island retreat where he enjoys some of the perks of his business.”
“Exactly what are those perks?”
“Human trafficking,” Browning said with such delight that it was all Maleah could do to stop herself from actually striking him. “A smorgasbord of human delights. Whatever your pleasure. Male or female. Child, teen or adult. Dark or fair. Experienced or virginal.”
The description of a billionaire who made his fortune from human trafficking and who owned an island retreat sounded all too familiar.
“A deal’s a deal.” Maleah leaned close enough for Browning to touch her.
Smiling, he lifted his cuffed hands, and then slowly and very tenderly wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. As she lifted her head, she watched as he placed his index finger on his tongue, licked his finger and then sucked it
